This isn’t an easy announcement to make, but it’s a necessary one. While I’d normally like to come to you with good news, today is not one of those days. Today, we’re announcing that we will be going through a price restructuring process throughout our product line.
The gist of it is that the prices for our larger bags will be going up. But we hope that you know that we’re only doing this because we see no other alternative, and we refuse to compromise on quality.
Price is probably one of the toughest pills to swallow when it comes to our bags, especially in our local Malaysian market. Yes, we use some of the best materials money can buy. Yes, we manufacture our products locally to our high quality standards. And yes, we offer some of the most extensive customisation options in the market so you can build your dream bag.
We’re always careful when pricing our products, and it has been years since we’ve made any meaningful changes to our price list. But, with the way the economy is going, we’re simply left with no other option.
The Ringgit has been in a tough spot for a while now, and that has made things especially difficult for us because we import all of our raw materials. Combined with the fact that the cost of raw materials has been steadily increasing, we’re making less and less for each bag we sell.
Then, there’s also the rising cost of shipping. Most of our sales happen online, which means shipping is a huge expense for us. We’ve also been offering free shipping for local orders, and international orders above a certain amount, but with how thin our profit margins are due to the above factors, our existing pricing structure was just no longer feasible.
We want to continue producing high quality, locally manufactured products that last. Products that you can reliably carry all your hopes and dreams with. And we want to offer the kind of services you’ve come to love from Greenroom136, like our extensive customisation options and free shipping.
But, it's difficult to think about investing in new/innovative raw materials or about improving user experience when buying/receiving our products, when our main worry every month is whether we can make payroll.
That’s why our prices have to go up. Across the board, all of our bags (Slingshifter and larger) will be seeing a price bump in September 2024. Some will be bumped more than others, but we’ve also done so carefully because we want to give you good value for your money. Through our research, we believe that even at these new price points, we’re still below the market price average.
This price increase will not affect any merchandise, bottles, Tuna Tins, or other small accessories and W?ldcard Custom upgrades.
Finally, alongside the updated pricing, there is a little bit more bad news for our local customers. All of our local orders will now be subjected to 10% SST. This, unfortunately, is a requirement by the Malaysian government and is something that we have to implement. If you’ve been browsing our store from Malaysia, you may have already seen the 10% being added to the price of our products.
Now, it’s not all doom and gloom, because with the additional margin we can get from these revised prices, it’ll give us more opportunity to provide you with better services. It will also let us look into more avenues to improve our products.
Right off the bat, we’re immediately expanding our W?ldcard Custom builder to now include a whole host of EPX400 colours. In the past, we’ve only offered this fabric in black, but now you can choose from 9 different EPX colours when building your custom bag.
Next, we’re bringing back the Silver ripstop inner lining for W?ldcard Custom backpacks. For a little extra cost, you can change our standard Marigold ripstop inner lining for the Silver ripstop inner lining when configuring your W?ldcard Custom bag.
In addition to those changes to our existing W?ldcard Custom build, we will be introducing a brand new service called By Your Command (yes, that’s a Battlestar Galactica reference). With this, we will periodically be allowing our community to vote on special editions of certain bags, with customisations that we normally wouldn’t have done.
The first drop will be a limited run of one of our slings/single strap packs in an EPX400 colour of your choosing. We’re really excited for this because you’ll be in charge of what bags we make, and we’ll have the opportunity to build some truly special products for you to own.
More details for this will be dropping soon, so make sure you’re following on all of our social media platforms.
And those are just the immediate things we plan to implement. The revised prices will also allow us to dabble into other things that can improve the experience of shopping Greenroom136, from shipping all the way to product offerings.
That is it for the major updates regarding Greenroom136 moving forward. Believe me when I say that this was not an easy decision to make, but it is a necessary one to ensure this company’s survival.
We believe in being as transparent as possible with you all about why we make certain decisions, so that’s the reason for this lengthy post. I hope this gives you some insight into why we’re making these decisions and I hope you can be as excited as I am for the future of this company.
Thank you for all your kind patience and understanding.
–Pat.
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